Monthly Archives: February 2019

Slow yourself down

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By Hannah (BA Hons Advertising and Marketing: Student Blogger)

Slow yourself down.

I don’t think it’s just me who has felt massively overwhelmed with the stresses and pressures that we not only put on ourselves but experience through just existing at university: Trying to balance society responsibilities, a social life, plans for next year, interviews and assessment centres, oh and not to forget your actual degree!

As well as sleeping, eating and generally existing.

It all just seems ever so slightly (massively) impossible.

It seems we are always running around, joining in the constant conversation of ‘what next?’ whilst trying to get absolutely everything done from the minute we wake up to the minute we go to bed (or, if you’re anything like me, get home at 5pm and ‘accidentally’ nap for four hours; coincidentally, also the amount of sleep I was averaging a night. But at 5pm I refuse to call four hours sleep anything but a ‘nap’!)

I was living on this carousel, and as easy as it is to jump on the ‘ride’, the more you go round and round trying to fit everything in, the dizzier you get and the more overwhelming it all becomes.

Because like a carousel, the ride of University is a positive one with opportunities left, right and centre. But unless you slow down, it’s impossible to enjoy the moments in between: life happening right now. The rest of the ‘fun fair’.

There is no time like right now, these little pockets of time that you are living today. Not next year, not tomorrow but right now. In our little city of Lancaster, which is home for the now. You don’t always need to be going somewhere fast or anywhere at all.

S L O W  D O W N.

Give yourself time.

It’s completely okay if not every day is full of meetings and essay plans and social media schedules, gym sessions, social gatherings and future planning. Some days may look like settling yourself down in a nook of a cosy coffee shop (because Lancaster has an abundance) with the window misty and the rain (again, thank you Lancaster) outside, sipping coffee, slowly working or just watching the world go by.

Take time for yourself, to enjoy the ride of life that isn’t a constant carousel, which in time makes us dizzy and overwhelmed. Don’t spend your entire time on the carousel and at the end of three/four years realise you missed out on the rest of the little joys. The candyfloss of life.

Be intentional with your today. Your now. Tomorrow can wait for some other day. If you’re always rushing to the next moment, ask yourself ‘What happens to the one I’m in?’ Trust me, and just take a moment to appreciate the present moment that IS your life NOW.

And maybe to you this doesn’t look like cosy coffee shops on a rainy Wednesday afternoon. And that’s okay. Your now can be anything you want it to be. Just make it something, anything,  that’s not a tomorrow.

FIKA (Swedish noun): a moment to slow down and appreciate the good things in life.

One day at a time.

Exams already! Bring it on!

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By Will (Student Blogger: BSc Hons Entrepreneurship and Management)

It only seems like yesterday when I was arriving at university ready to start the year, full of optimism and confidence on how I would keep on top of work being the best student I could. It therefore seems almost unreal and more than a bit daunting that the word exam is already being thrown around, with expectations of revision mounting by the passing day.

Though it is true that exams are not particularly enjoyable to partake in, if prepared for in ample time they become infinitely more enjoyable, believe it or not. Now I’m not saying I relish the moment that I can sit in a room writing answers to questions for hours on end. However there have been times when I have come out of the exam hall punching the air in extasy and quietly saying to myself ‘think I smashed that’ or words to that effect. These rare occurrences present themselves whenever I give myself ample time to plan and revise for the designated task.

It is true that everyone revises differently, and I, unfortunately, have no advice on what may be the best for those reading to use. There is one universal practice, however, that will ensure the heavy dread felt in your stomach before each exam is lifted. As the old saying goes ‘fail to prepare, then prepare to fail’ this could not be truer for university exams. A lot of students get caught out with mid term exams, expecting all papers to be sat in third term, this is not the case for most courses, however. I know from experience that despite not actually knowing the material for the exam just knowing the time I had left to revise allowed me to plan in my mind the days I had left to get serious and put a pen to paper.

Preparation for an exam doesn’t just relate to knowing when it is going to commence, however. With most university exams you will be told what you’re expected to do well in advance of sitting the paper, do not ignore this. You would be surprised at how many students ‘wing it’ on the day not reading the brief of what is to come and just banking on the exam being a traditional essay format. Your professors want you to pass their modules and 99% of the time provide hints and tips in the lectures and documents that lay out the exam task. Ensuring you are aware of the exam task before you take the paper greatly increases your chances of success, as you will have been able to at least mentally plan what your approach is.

Finally, university exams sometimes allow you to bring in certain articles and books that can be annotated before the exam. If this is the case use it. It’s too late once you’re in the exam hall, so make sure you have all the required readings with you well before. If you are unsure, just check with your lecturers or course leaders; their job is to help you and they will usually give you extra information if you actively seek them out.

University exams may seem scary but using another adage ‘the bark is worse than the bite’ the more aware you are of them and their contents, the easier they are to conquer.

How to make the most of your feedback

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By Klaudia (Student Blogger: BBA Hons International Business Management)

Feedback is common in all aspects of our life, and coursework for us, students, is the most frequent way we receive it. However, how to benefit from it?

The feedback we receive at university may be very diverse – it may be only a mark, or it could be extensive comment. Often we might not pay a lot of attention to it after we see that we have either done well or badly on our piece of work. It is, however, important to take some time and try to analyse any precious comments that it may contain, in order to learn from our mistakes and improve in all of our assignments.

Just looking at the grade won’t bring any improvement. Look carefully at the comments and analyse them. Never throw the feedback away!  Look back at your comments before doing your next assignment, in order to avoid making the same mistakes. Remember to focus not only on the negative comments. It won’t be productive and won’t help you to move forward academically. As feedback may be disappointing sometimes, give yourself a few days to get over your emotions and come back to it after some time.

If you would like to talk about feedback with somebody, do not be afraid to ask for help. Your first option should be to see the tutor concerned; you could also speak to your Academic Tutor or make an appointment at the Academic Writing Zone and talk to a mentor about it. If a tutor highlights an area for improvement, take it seriously – this comment may be warning you of, for example, potential plagiarism, if you do not cite the necessary references in your work. Lack of referencing can be a very serious mistake with bad consequences.

However, most importantly, recognise what you did well in the assignment. It’s easy to focus on the negative things, but it is also useful to know what you did right so that you can do it again next time.

When you receive feedback, it is important that you take the time to analyse what has been said. Sometimes feedback may relate to your academic knowledge within the particular subject that you are studying, or it could relate to your learning development or study skills in general.

Once you understand whether your feedback relates to improving your academic knowledge or learning development skills you can seek out the right support. For example, if you are struggling with the academic content you may have to speak to your lecturer/tutor to help you expand your reading materials around it. Keep in mind that many tutors refer to the grading criteria when leaving feedback, and through the language they use in your comments, it may be easy to identify why you have been awarded a mark when comparing your feedback to the grading criteria. This should enable you to easily identify areas where you can improve upon in your coursework in the future.

Summing up, feedback is an important part of every assignment. Markers aim to deliver precious tips on how to improve your work and how to succeed in the future – so make sure you make the most of it!

 

 

How to get yourself organised for the rest of Lent Term

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By Sophia (Student Blogger: BA Hons Religious Studies)

Already feeling like Uni is getting the best of you? Don’t panic, lots of us feel the same way this time of year, so here’s some helpful tips to get you on your way to nailing second term.

Time management:

This is probably the area where students struggle most, it can often feel that one minute you have all the time in the world and the next minute you barely have chance for a break. To nail time management, try to factor into your budget this week purchasing a large wall-mounted academic year planner, a list book, and potentially a diary, unless you find using your phone calendar more useful.

A full term can feel like a long time when in reality the weeks fly by, and you can often be overly optimistic about how much time you have left until the deadlines hit. Mark each deadline on your wall-mounted planner as well as in your diary or phone calendar. This allows you to maintain a healthy-work life balance by scheduling activities in, such as having lunch with your parents, any society commitments such as netball games or socials, and even just nights in to relax on your own or with housemates.

Your list book is where the real magic happens, even when you’re fully aware of what you need to do, it’s often highly intimidating when you have a huge pile of seemingly never-ending reading, researching and writing to get done. Take a two page spread, mark the date in the top left hand corner and write each day of the upcoming week vertically down the first page. Under each day, write down what you have to have done by that day. For example, if you have a seminar on Tuesday for which you need to have read two articles. This allows you to plan your workload chronologically and clearly lays out exactly what needs to be done and by when.

On the second page write down any other tasks you need to do, these can be extracurricular or careers-related tasks, anywhere from updating your CV,  to ordering a food shop. This ensures you don’t forget any of the niggling administrative things you need to get done, and makes sure everything else in your life is ticking along nicely. If you do this for every week, factoring in some time for deadline work alongside work for seminars, workshops or labs, you’ll certainly be busy, but hopefully not blindsided by what you need to get done.

Organisation:

Just like with your list book and diary, everything feels much easier when you have it planned out. If your notes from lectures and seminars are all over the place, it becomes a tremendous task at the end of Lent term to get them in order ready for revision. Take a leaf out of the book of Marie Kondo and get organised! Whether you take notes in paper of electronic form, if your filing system is a mess, you’ll thank yourself later for getting it sorted now.

Paper form: Organise your work into separate wallets for each module, and place them all in one larger folder. Having everything separated into modules will make studying during exam season a breeze. Make sure to put any essays or marked pieces of work for each module in there too, they can be a great revision resource.

Electronic form: Much the same as with paper notes, you need to organise your files into folders. It’s slightly more fun this way, as you can create folders for each module, and then create folders within these folders to separate notes from lectures, seminars and for essay preparation. Also make sure to save electronic versions of submitted coursework in each module folder too. Don’t forget to colour code for extra satisfaction!

Having everything in order, planning well, and keeping a good balance between work and play makes everything seem just that bit more manageable. Try using some of these tips to see how they improve your work ethic this term.

Managing coursework and relaxing: End the day doing something new

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by Carlos (Student blogger: PhD in Management Science)

During these weeks, there is something interesting going on at the Uni. Everybody is struggling with coursework, going from one lecture to another and trying to find time to relax. Michaelmas term is over with, coursework handed in and before we realise, Lent term courses have begun.  Some students think that missing one lecture will help them to finish their coursework. Unfortunately, this is quite ineffective from my point of view. Then the question is how to deal with all this pressure while you just want to find a time to relax.

I could say, ‘I’m not the best example to tell you how to deal with this.’ However I have seen some friends that used to work day and night, and sleeping just a few hours a day (or every two days in some cases). I cannot deny that I used to feel a bit guilty after seeing them going to work for a second shift, while I was coming back to sleep.

But then the question is, when can I make progress? After midnight? At the first hour in the morning? After dusk? In my case, the problem was related to a lack of inspiration that used to happen from time to time.  As I had to complete a piece of coursework with 8 different sections by using a single dataset, looking over the same data every day, I got stuck on charts and summary tables, and then I got this moment when I asked yourself “what else could I do?” Fortunately I had some colleagues to talk with and they suggested different ideas, including reading some books and looking for web resources.

Frustration is sometimes the main issue and talking with classmates can be useful to reduce stress but my main recommendation is to do something new every day, to avoid staying in bed and adding something new so you can see how you progress. And of course, you need some spare time that has to be used wisely; avoid staying in your room, go for a walk, go to buy your groceries. Try a different route and treat yourself after making some progress. Assign a time to relax.

Reading a book, going for a stroll, or watching a movie, can reveal something different and help you to see the hidden face of the cube. Also a good routine of a least 7 hours sleep every day, some workouts in the morning, and assigning a special place and time for studying are very helpful. It is also satisfactory to go to bed every day with some new progress in your coursework or dissertation. A clear mind can give you new ideas after a proper sleep. It is also possible to get new ideas while you’re dreaming!

My rule of thumb, in this case, would be to end the day knowing that you have done something new. I had the opportunity to attend a writing retreat, and I was surprised by how much you can write when there are no distractions, no calls, no social media, no WhatsApp. But you have to also be motivated and feel inspired. I struggle to work consistently at the beginning, but after getting involved at the writing retreat and finding some motivation, I think, I could be working on a subject for ages.

To sum up, my suggestion is  to begin your coursework as soon as possible, avoid distractions you identify while you’re working (it is possible and it works!), keep yourself busy during working times in a place dedicated for that, and you’ll get immediate results, even if the progress is slow at the beginning. Don’t desist! As soon as you get stuck, contact your fellows, your supervisor or tutor, don’t wait too long. Or try doing another part of the requirements and then go back to the section if you think you can improve.

A bit of exercise every day, good sleeping and a healthy diet are helpful. Relax at least one day per week (close the book during that day), drink water regularly and don’t feel bad if you have a difficult moment when you lack ideas – it is normal after hard work! Take that time to do something new, some local sightseeing maybe, a new movie, and then get back to work 😉